


Tsunami Under The Bridge

by HogwartsToAlexandria



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Accidents, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arguments, Bike accidents, Blood, Complicated Relationships, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, Frottage, M/M, Minor Injuries, Supply Runs, Supply Runs Gone Wrong; Or Right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29218986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria
Summary: "You don't hate my guts anymore, and that fucks with your mind, doesn't it, Daryl?"
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Negan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Tsunami Under The Bridge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luneur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luneur/gifts).



"You don't hate my guts anymore, and that fucks with your mind, doesn't it, Daryl?" 

* * *

"People can change, you did, didn't you?" 

* * *

"Let me out of here already!" 

* * *

"Oh Daryl, if you really wanted me dead, you'd have put on your big boy pants and done it already, don't you think?" 

* * *

"If you were going to keep me in this fucking cell for the rest of eternity you should have let your gal Carol do it. You should have let her kill me." 

"Maybe I should have. Yeah." Daryl finally answered. He hadn't said a word to Negan for so long, even when he came down here, which was often enough. He just looked at him, or sat against the wall facing Negan's cell. Sometimes he brought him his food and stayed a while, sometimes he came in the middle of the night after spending time outside the walls, hunting. Sometimes he had a reason. Most of the time he didn't. 

"Oh, but he talks!" Negan's head whipped up from where it had been resting on his almost flat pillow, legs bent at the knees. He laughed, and Daryl frowned. That asshole having anything to laugh about pissed him off. 

He left. 

He didn't come back for weeks, maybe longer. Some shit went down with other communities, same way it always did. No matter how many precautions they took, how much Gabe and Michonne tried to protect them all, there was always some sick bastard somewhere who wanted what they had. Always some greedy fucker trying to worm their way in and burn them to the ground. 

That wouldn't happen. It didn't this time at least. 

* * *

There was blood and grime on his arms, some on his cheeks too, he could feel it, dried, pulling at his skin, but Daryl didn't care. He'd never cared about that shit. Had more important things to worry about than whether he was sparkly clean enough to sit at the table of the Queen of motherfucking England. 

He went to see Negan. 

The door creaked when he pulled it open, enough that there was no being discreet about it. He didn't care about that either. Couldn't care less if Negan was sleeping or not. 

He wasn't, but for once, he kept his trap shut. Good. 

Daryl put his bow down next to him, picked at his dirty fingernails and looked everywhere but in Negan's direction. He heard him sigh, he heard him pace — from the wall of the cell to its bars, from the corner of it to the window that opened at ground level of the street. Same window he talked to Judith through. 

When Daryl looked up, maybe minutes, maybe hours later, Negan was sitting the same way he was, behind the bars, his arm at the foot of his bed and his chin in his hand, watching him. He raised an eyebrow at him, and Daryl frowned. 

_"You don't hate my guts anymore, and that fucks with your mind, doesn't it, Daryl?"_

He'd been right, and not. Daryl would always hate him. He killed Glenn, and he killed Abraham, and he hurt Carol, and he hurt Rick, and he threatened their entire community, and Eric and Denise and… he would always hate him. But it wasn't all that Daryl felt anymore. It was messed up — sometimes, when there was too much noise out there and even killing some walkers didn't take the edge off, when hunting deer didn't soothe him the way it did back when he did it with Merle when they were kids, coming here and sitting in Negan's space worked. Fucking with his mind for damn sure. 

It was quiet, and no one expected anything of him here. No one looked at him thinking he should be doing something, anything. Michonne and her dark, sad eyes. Judith with Rick's python and Rick's hat and Rick's gait, RJ and the wasted opportunity of Rick knowing his son. There was too much out there, and even being in his room alone didn't work — it was only one room, the rest of the house still filled with other people and their expectations. 

Negan asked to be let out every five minutes and he liked his own voice too much, but at least Daryl didn't feel compelled to do anything but tell him to fuck off. It was quiet. He liked quiet. 

Daryl fell asleep right there that night, and he was gone again before Negan could say another word. 

* * *

"You're bleeding." 

"Shut up." 

"You are bleeding! A lot! Let me take a look." Negan grabbed Daryl's arm, and Daryl practically growled. 

"Let go of me." 

He'd known this was a shit idea, taking Negan with him for a supply run when he could've just as well gone alone, just because everyone else had the flu or something. It was dumb, and dangerous, and he didn't trust him. And of course his bike had chosen that day to go nuts and go brake-less, sending him to crash on the asphalt. 

"Let me look and I'll let go." Negan asked again, his hand still tight around Daryl's bicep. 

They'd made it to some sort of shop that must have sold clothes once. It was empty, silent, no dead fuckers groaning anywhere. They'd checked. It was kind of dark, but not enough that they had to use their flashlights. There was still some daylight filtering through the half torn curtains. 

"Fine." Daryl shrugged Negan's hand off as hard as he could. It made him wince. Bad call, maybe. 

"Sit down." Negan said, pointing to the counter where a cash register must have been, but it was all dust now. 

Daryl did, biting the inside of his cheeks when it pulled at the wound at his side. He pointedly looked at the wall behind Negan when the man stepped forward. He did it slowly, and that was just as well. Couldn't be sure Daryl wouldn't hit him out of reflex if he startled him. 

"May I?" Negan asked, and shit if the gentle way he was touching Daryl's side wasn't all kinds of weird. 

"Hmm." Daryl nodded, grateful for the way his hair hid parts of his face. 

He watched him this time, as Negan pushed his vest away from his side and carefully took Daryl's arm out of it. He let him move him around, touching up the side of the gash that had torn a hole in his shirt. 

Then Negan shouldered off his backpack and put it down next to him, looking through it until he found a bottle of the homemade disinfectant Carol always put in the kits they took outside the walls. 

"It's gonna hurt." 

Daryl huffed, and then bit his lip hard enough that it split. It did hurt. He was used to worse, of course, but shit. 

"Can you open that?" Negan, tugged at the top buttons of Daryl's shirt, and it was hard to look him in the eye but the way it happened, when Daryl nodded, Negan gave him a small smile, one that had nothing to do with that shit-eating grin he always had on back when they fought, Sanctuary against Alexandria. It made Daryl feel funny, and if he was any dumber, it would have made him brush Negan off. He'd have told him to get lost. Or would have stormed out of here alone. 

He knew better than walking around bleeding though, so he just painstakingly opened his shirt, cursing the small buttons for refusing to go into the holes on the first try. His whole arm was shaking with the pain at his side, he'd fallen off the bike so hard — 

"I can do it. If you let me?" Negan asked, again with that tone, softer than he had any right to use talking to Daryl. 

"Fuck me." Daryl cursed, and ignored him when it made Negan chuckle. "Fine, do it! But quicker we got other shit to do!" 

Negan, of course, managed to unbutton Daryl's shirt just fine, and then he was wrapping the bandage roll around his torso, his large hands spanning his chest and hips and back as he did one turn, and then a second. Daryl wanted it to hurt, wanted something to take his mind away from the fact that somehow, that shit felt good. He wished he could have something to blame on Negan right about now. Something new to be pissed about other than the discomfort of the whole situation and the way it didn't feel bad the way it should. 

"I'm done." Negan said a while after, but he was still so close, standing between Daryl's parted legs, his hip cocked the way it always was, and touching the inside of Daryl's thigh. "You okay?" 

The concern thing again. For fuck's sakes. 

"M'fine." Daryl said, and moved as he did so, trying to force Negan to move too. He didn't. He didn't move at all, so when Daryl hopped off the counter, chest bandaged and shirt still open, Negan was impossibly close, their faces only an inch or so from each other. Daryl blinked, trying to remember how breathing worked. There was the pain of the crash, still, but there was more than that, he knew as much, even if it made no sense. Negan's eyes were too big, too open this close, and his hands were so close to touching him, too. It was too much.

"I said I'm fine." Daryl grunted. It only made Negan smile again, that same small thing. That same maddening closeness not going away. 

"You always do that. With everyone, too, even Judith." 

"Don't talk about Judith."

"Why? She and I have a friendship of sorts. I like her. And she likes me! Weird how that worked out, uh?" 

Daryl gritted his teeth, of course he would go there. Scratch only the littlest bit and he once again wanted to punch the smugness out of Negan's face. He didn't though, but only because he was hurting too much. Not worth it. 

"Well I don't. So get the fuck out of my way now." 

Negan laughed at that, only a hint of the laugh he once had, but Daryl knew better now, he knew what Negan's fake laughs sounded like and this wasn't it. 

"What'you laughing at?!" _He_ got in Negan's face this time. Whispered as strongly as he could. He wasn't dumb enough to yell. 

"Nothing." 

"Nothing?" Daryl pushed at Negan's shoulders, anger was rising inside him, the same rage Negan could always push him to, the same rage Rick sometimes used to put him through. 

It all happened in a handful of seconds, not much time at all to make sense of any of it, if there was any to make. Negan pushed back, until Daryl was once again backed against the counter, and he pushed with his whole body. They stood with their bodies lined up, legs tangled and chests heaving against each other, and Negan pushed again. 

"Nothing." He repeated, his eyes dancing from Daryl's lips and back up. One of his hands came up to flick Daryl's hair out of his face much more gently than their interaction so far had let Daryl prepare for. And then he pressed their lips together, and Daryl didn't know why, didn't want to know either, but he responded. He pressed back. He wound his arms around Negan's neck thinking he would shove him back, and instead he pulled him even closer. Their mouths slid together, lips chapped and hot and demanding, and Negan licked the seam of them and Daryl opened up for him, as crazy as that sounded. It didn't feel crazy. 

It felt right, and that was wrong. Right? 

Negan's tongue seeked his own and Daryl hesitantly imitated him. The contact made him shiver, it made his brain all fuzzy and his stomach all warm. His pants, tight. 

"Sure you don't like me at least a little bit?" Negan asked when they drew back, panting. His knee was wedged between Daryl's legs and he pressed his thigh to Daryl's crotch, letting the both of them know just how hard he was. Asshole. 

"Shut your fuckin' mouth." Daryl cursed him, but he couldn't help it — he used his arm around Negan's neck to pull him into another kiss, one that made their teeth clank and his lips hurt and that worked perfectly well to make Negan shut up, indeed. He could still feel him smile into it, but Daryl pushed the irritation away. He hadn't kissed anyone in ages, not that he'd ever kissed a lot of people. 

This was both new and familiar, unsettling and soothing, and it was crazy, and it was not. Fuck. 

In the moment, nothing else seemed to matter but the rough stubble on both their jaws and the dust on Negan's jacket Daryl was getting all over his fingers. He forgot his pain and he forgot why they were out here in the first place. He didn't forget where they were, couldn't afford to do that, but he didn't care. When they parted for breath they stayed close, when they kissed again, Daryl closed his eyes. When the kiss broke off again, he struggled to open them back up. He felt out of breath in a way he wasn't sure he'd ever experienced, and his gut was doing something funny, all twisty and warm and his fucking dick pressing into Negan's thigh, or the other way around. 

"This doesn't mean shit." He said, growled as much as he could. 

"Whatever helps you sleep at night Daryl, whatever helps you sleep at night."

Daryl didn't think this would help him any come night-time, but for once, he decided that shutting Negan up wasn't the most important — shutting up his mind and his worries, that was. And if kissing and rutting against Negan's leg was the way, it's what he was gonna do. It's what he did.   
  



End file.
